MINNESOTA FATS was a brilliant pool player, but he was even better at lying about his past. WIMPY LASSITER, the gentleman hustler, started playing at age seven and for the rest of his life lived for the rush of victory and high stakes. Violent and determined, JERSEY RED made and lost a fortune at the table.
With a passion for the game evident on every page, R. A. Dyer takes us through smoky bars and late nights where a win was just as dangerous as a loss. He captures the game's popularity in the Thirties, its dark days in the Fifties, and its renaissance and apex in the Sixties, fueled by the smashing success of Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason going toe-to-toe in The Hustler. It was an era that culminated in the legendary, nationally televised tournaments in Little Egypt, Illinois, where Jersey Red and Wimpy Lassiter went at it for hours. And it was an era that ended in perhaps the most dramatic scene in all of pool. Just as Jersey Red beat Wimpy Lassiter in 1969, after a decade of bitter rivalry, the police shut down the tournament. Cameras in tow, they arrested eighty hustlers? including the new champion.
Dyer offers fascinating insight into the game of pool, as it paralleled the economy of our country and its trends. Readers will embrace Fats, Wimpy, and Red?the fool, the poor-boy-done-good, and the hustler-with-a-heart-of-gold?as their stars rise and fall. Complete with a glossary of pool terms, a list of tournaments, and profiles of other top players, this is the definitive book on a time when pool was king and these three players, its princes. From Fats's first showdown?in Brooklyn, with a Texas-style gunslinger in cowboy boots and revolvers?to world championship clashes, hustler days is rollicking portrait of America's most roguish sport.
What People Say About "Hustler Days"
"R. A. Dyer has written a billiards classic. It's a paean to a game and a time that will always be a piece of America's soul. The book clicks along with the precision and elegance of Jersey Red running eight and out. Complex as one-pocket, smooth as a nine-ball combination, this book will find its way to the shelf next to McGoorty, The Hustler and The Color of Money."
K DAVID McCUMBER - AUTHOR OF PLAYING OFF THE RAIL
"A masterpiece, a rollicking guide into a rare, exotic side of the American Dream? where hip, urban versions of the gunslinging cowboy spend smoky nights in pursuit of perfect freedom. Dyer's prose is as clean and breathtaking as a killer corner shot. This is the definitive word on a sport that is really a way of life. Anyone who has ever wondered what it means to really be free needs to read this book?but be careful... you just might be tempted to drop your 9-to-5 job and follow Dyer's extraordinarily crafted roadmap to those seductive Hustler Days."
BILL MINUTAGLIO - AUTHOR OF FIRST SON: GEORGE W. BUSH & THE BUSH FAMILY DYNASTY
"The risk and rewards of living by your wits as well as the pressure of tournament play and big-money games are vividly described in this tour through the world of Wimpy, Fats, and Jersey Red. You'll come away knowing them better than you do your friends."
ROBERT BYRNE - AUTHOR OF BYRNE'S NEW STANDARD BOOK OF POOL AND BILLIARDS
"Fascinating."
GEORGE FELS - CONSULTING EDITOR, BILLIARDS DIGEST
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R. A. DYER is a contributor to the nation's premier pool magazine, Billiards Digest. He spent over four years researching the book, and conducted more than a hundred interviews. He is currently a statehouse reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and, before that, a reporter for The Houston Chronicle, where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas. |
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; "Hustler Days")
